Rónán Mullen (Independent)
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Finally, I have question for Dr. Casey. If I understand him correctly, Dr. Casey is saying that in the Supreme Court judgment in the Fleming case, the court was not saying that the Oireachtas does not have the right to legislate, but is it Dr. Casey's view that the court did not say that we do have the right either? Looking at the High Court judgment where the court goes through its list of worries, it talks about it being compelling and deeply worrying that relaxing the ban would bring about a paradigm shift with unforeseeable and perhaps uncontrollable changes in attitude and behaviour. In the context of what Deputy Kenny said earlier, there are undoubtedly people out there who worry that if change is made for some categories of people and those categories include themselves, automatically they are somehow less valued by society and less valued in the eyes of the State because their life may be legally ended and so on. Therefore, what we enable for one does damage to other people's sense of themselves and sense of their life. I do not want to be putting words into Dr. Casey's mouth but is that the type of concern he thinks is relevant? Is he saying that were the Legislature to bring in a regime in the absence of constitutional change, then considerations such as the one I mentioned from the High Court, the idea that we cannot actually have safeguards even if we wanted them, because the situation, to use the court's words, is uncontrollable, are relevant? If he thinks that a majority of the Supreme Court might be persuaded to that view, why then is there not an issue about the fact we decriminalised suicide itself in this country?

I know this was not a positive act that could have been impugned by the court, but would the fact we decriminalised suicide not suggest that even if there was not a constitutional right or a statutory right, and on the basis of what the Department of Justice said last week that what is not prohibited is somehow permitted, there is some sense that there is a right to end one's life, or am I wrong? I tried to tease this out with the Department of Justice last week. I asked the witnesses last week if I were to interfere with a person's liberty or - and I am conscious we are dealing with extremely sensitive stuff but we must tease these issues out - if somebody intervened to prevent a suicide from completion, are they on the same footing? Would they be liable to civil action in the same way as if they had stopped somebody from going into a sports ground and such like?